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“In Bruges” by Carter Burwell, Various Artists

The chamber-music-like score to In Bruges grew on me over time until now, where it sits on top of my 2008 soundtrack list with a definite 10 out of 10. Composer Carter Burwell will forever have a page in my book, despite his recent compositions which I’m not entirely keen at. But with scores like this one he hits just the right note.

#1: In Bruges (Original)

#2: In Bruges (Remake)

#3: In Bruges (Custom)

#4: In Bruges (Custom)

#5: In Bruges (Custom)

In combination with the film’s photography, Burwell created a dense athmosphere filled with melancholy, loneliness and atonement. Three key attributes the original artwork (#1) didn’t transport all too well. So I sat down and started altering it’s colours, replacing the sky texture and changing the background to black (#2). I tweaked and fiddled until it finally looked as bleak and dozy as the city where the film takes place: In Bruges.

The third one (#3) is actually a remake of an old custom cover I did a few years ago. But this time I used a much higher resolutioned source artwork, switched font types, shopped out a few text elements and added an effect to get more texture.

For the last custom cover (#5) I had created different colour accentuated versions and I planned to publish them all here in thispost. But it is said, that good designers preselect for their audience (“less is more”) to prevent monotony and boredom. So I narrowed it down to my favourite one for you, isn’t that nice?

I bought In Bruges on iTunes the night after I watched the film for the very first time. Back then digital booklets were a rarity, but still Lakeshore Records managed to add one to this digital release, so here you go.